The Implications of Petro-Philanthropy in the Museum of Islamic Art at Doha, Qatar
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Constructing Monuments, Constructing Time: The Implications of Petro-Philanthropy in the Museum of Islamic Art at Doha, Qatar Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with research distinction in History of Art in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University By Ryan Mitchell The Ohio State University April 2017 Project Advisor: Dr. Kristina Paulsen, Department of History of Art Secondary Project Advisor: Dr. Thomas Davis, Department of English 1 Hotels, apartment buildings, and corporate headquarters with shimmering, plate-glass façades to dominate much of the rapidly changing skyline of Qatar’s capital city, Doha. As one travels along Doha’s waterfront promenade, the Corniche, away from the jostling skyscrapers of the West Bay business district, museums, cultural centers, and parks replace the corporate headquarters and luxury developments. A myriad of structures that surround the Souq Waqif, a re-furbished historical market that was shortlisted for an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in the 2008-2010 cycle. They reflect the efforts of the Qatari government to style Doha as an international center of culture: The Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center, its spiral minaret that imitates the famed original in the complex of the Great Mosque of Samarra; the staring eyes and too-cheery colors of Takashi Murakami’s Ego are painted on the white cube of the AlRIWAQ contemporary art space; and the historic areas near Qatar’s administrative and symbolic center, the Amiri Diwan, that have been recently restored (Fig. 1-2). Curving into the Persian Gulf from the proliferating development along the Corniche is Doha’s most internationally-celebrated cultural institution: the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) (Fig. 3). Designed by I.M. Pei and finished in 2008, the MIA’s priceless collection, superstar architect, and synthesis of early Islamic architecture with stark postmodern forms represent the aspiration of the Qatari emirate to create in Doha an international cultural capital. Pei sought to create a building that would, in his view, embody the “essence of Islam”.1 In order to capture the multivalence of Islamic culture, art, and architecture in the MIA, Pei looked to cultures from Spain to the Indonesia for inspiration. In the MIA, Pei combines the historical forms that, to his mind, represent the history of Islam with his own modern and postmodern vocabulary. The result is a building that mediates between the past and the future—a structure that radiates something 1 Jodidio, Philip. Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar (Prestel Verlag, 2008), 46. 2 of the eternal in its solidity and isolation from the mainland on its artificial island. The fusion of contemporary and early Islamic elements in the Museum of Islamic Art adapts evokes an ur-past of Islamic civilization and asserts the the present Qatari state’s ambitions, which are driven forward by the vast wealth made available to it by the sale of oil and natural gas. Petro-dollars suffuse Museum of Islamic Art’s timelessness, complicating it and its collections, coloring its exploration of time and presence. In this essay, I will argue that the “petro-philanthropy” that made possible the construction of the MIA complex monumentalizes oil and freezes us in the Age of the Anthropocene by inviting us to lose ourselves in Pei’s masterful synthesis of post- modern and early Islamic architectural forms. They evoke a glorious Islamic ur-past and cause us to ignore the inevitable post-oil future. The Logic of “Petro-Philanthropy” “Petro-philanthropy” is an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in the financing of the world’s cultural institutions as state-funded arts programs disappear and institutional operations must increasingly rely on private donations and corporate sponsorships. Oil companies or entities closely associated with the petroleum industry seek to position themselves as corporate citizens in societies around the world by providing support to cultural institutions through donations and sponsorships.2 The inseparability of oil money from institutions is especially evident in Gulf nations such as Qatar, whose economic relies almost entirely on oil and natural gas extraction. Mel Evans’ 2015 book Artwash: Big Oil and the Arts argues that petro-philanthropy allows companies to “artwash” their dubious activities and construct an ethical, socially-conscious image that ignores problematic labor practices, environmental devastation, and, above all, the 2 Mel Evans, Artwash: Big Oil and the Arts (London: Pluto Press, 2015), 13. 3 transience of petroleum as an energy source.3 Those entities associated with oil do not, however, simply disguise their questionable activities or absolve themselves via artwash. These companies, Evans argues, inscribe themselves and the caustic, unsustainable mythos of fossil fuels upon the multitude of histories and narratives that fill the galleries of the world’s museums.4 The sway that individuals and corporations associated with the extraction and sale of fossil fuels hold over museums creates these institutions and their contents as ritual structures dedicated to petroleum. Petroleum, that black, viscous, (and quickly diminishing) entity prized by humans for over a century has allowed for enormous advances in technology, quality of life, and the accumulation of vast fortunes for those who deal in it. Exhibits organized to lead the museum-goer through stories of eras and civilizations become intimately associated with the story of oil when petro-philanthropy dictates the inner-workings of the art museum. At times, Big Oil even adapts the stories of certain civilizations that have been devastated by extraction and refinement that swept through a landscape, often on the tide of imperialism. Evans provides two examples of this bizarre phenomenon. She describes two exhibitions sponsored by BP entitled East-West: Objects Between Cultures (2006) and The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting (2008) at Tate Britain in London that centered on works from or relating to the Near East in an effort to both “engage a Muslim audience” and with Edward Said’s critique of orientalism.5 Both of these exhibitions that purported to “engage with 150 years of continued culture and post-colonial critique” included objects from and relating to Iraq and surrounding areas that were the military targets of British and American troops following the September 11, 3 Evans, Artwash, 13-14. 5 Evans, Artwash, 128. 4 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.6 These exhibitions included a range of objects from painting to mercantile goods, and attempted to advance discussions of Great Britain’s colonial and artistic history as it relates to the Near East. But instead it asked audiences to consider these relationships in galleries sponsored by BP who “was at that very moment engaged in the attempted sell-off of Iraq’s resource wealth, which had been discussed in a secret meeting between the company and the government in 2002.”7 These exhibitions that asked audiences to reconsider Britain’s colonial past and the relationships between the monolithic East and West thus had the incongruous dynamic of being in galleries sponsored by Big Oil who were, in the moment of the Iraq War, complicit in the destruction of the cultural context from which many of the objects in the exhibition came. Through petro-philanthropy, however, Big Oil ties itself to each and every history curated and put on display in galleries around the world; logos, often discreet in the whiteness of the gallery space, imply the ownership over the story of civilization. Oil companies bolster their own status for shareholders and ensure the continuance of a narrative that portrays oil as an essential part of human life, the force that propels us forward in the innovative future. Carol Duncan argues that the art museum is our “most precious” cultural institution, a “ritual structure” or “ceremonial monument” built to “represent the order of the world, its past and present, and the individual’s place within it.”8 In Civilizing Ritual, Duncan points to the art museum as the monument that defines a community’s identity. It is a liminal space that acts as a portal into a constructed universe that organizes and “control[s] the representation of the community and its 6 Evans, Artwash, 128. 7 Evans, Artwash, 129. Evans also provides quotes on the relationship between oil companies, politics, and the occupation of Iraq from Greg Muttit’s 2011 book Fuel on Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq. 8 Carol Duncan, Civilizing Ritual: Inside Public Art Museums (London: Routledge, 1995), 8. 5 highest values and truths.”9 Precisely because of these powers to define and represent groups, the art museum is of great interest to those “in the highest circles of power.”10 If the art museum is such a powerful cultural agent, it is necessary to question the implications of petro-philanthropy. Corporate sponsorship and individual support by Big Oil and its proxies pervade these ritual structures and align the “values and truths” of communities with oil. Oil is written into the aggregations of history. Those who benefit from its sale create a mythology that of petroleum as eternal; the mythos of fossil fuels portrays them as a constant that allows humankind to triumph over nature and propel itself into the future.11 Michael J. Watts attempts to characterize the nature of petroleum mythology in “Petro- Violence: Some Thoughts on Community, Extraction, and Political Ecology.” Watts details eight features of petro-mythology and its promises to those who seek to extract it. First, he points out the most obvious of these properties: petroleum as a commodity (“oil as money”), but a commodity that generates wealth that far greater any other good or product.12 Watts then argues that nationalized oil is unique in its ability to produce a state.13 The state’s vision for itself becomes inseparable from oil when the government controls abstraction.